When I last delved into the world of rejected petitions there were 35,842 of them. Now there are 37,176 of them, so people have not lost their enthusiasm for trying to find a solution to the things that irritate them by means of a debate in the House of Commons. It is also clear that that the pattern of petitions varies with the seasons and with issues that are in the news. Thus, the most recent batch of rejected petitions is dominated by calls for silent fireworks and the banning of noisy fireworks. Another common topic in recent weeks was the issue of American Bully dogs: some demanding they all be shot and others asking that the owners are not stigmatised.
But, scattered amongst these are some attempts at having a petition raised that demonstrate the sheer eccentricity, the sense of humour and a widespread inability to master the rudiments of English grammar that is prevalent among those who raise rejected petitions.
Outrage at the price of confections is quite common and the absence of a fast food product stirred one failed petitioner. “Lock the price of a Freddo at 25p” demanded someone who justified his attempt saying: “The price of a Cadbury’s Freddo is absolutely abhorrent. The U.K. is in a cost of living crisis, and one can’t even purchase oneself a Cadbury’s Freddo without breaking the bank.” But, at least Freddos are available, even if overpriced, unlike the McRib which appears to have been banned. “Bring the McRib back to the U.K.” demanded one person who asked: “Unban the McRib, get McDonald’s on the line and tell them to bring the McRib back to the U.K.” Sadly, the McRib will remain ‘banned’.
Demonstrating an enthusiasm for exclamation marks but not for spelling, Transport for London (TfL) will never know how close it came to being the subject of an early day motion as a result of one hopeful request to “Make TFL free!!!” Why, well it is clearly explained that we need to “make TFL free as there (sic) scammers”.
As a country we have mainly dealt with prejudice and discrimination. We have legislation covering race, religion, age and sexual orientation. You would think we had it sorted, but no, there is a group of people who continue to suffer — mainly in silence — but no longer, or so hoped one hopeful petitioner who, we can assume, had ginger hair. So “Make picking on people with red/ginger hair a hate crime” was the title of one rejected petition which specifically asked: “To make picking on people with red or ginger hair a crime.” Sadly, for this red-haired person, his particular petition will not be debated but he clearly had tapped into the zeitgeist as his rejection was on the basis that “there’s already a petition about this issue”, which is quite a common reason for rejection. He was pointed to another petition which was more eloquently worded and which asked Parliament to “Make hair colour a protected characteristic covered by hate crime legislation“, stating: “We want hair colour to be made a protected characteristic to protect people with red or ginger hair from discrimination. Hate crime laws should also be extended to cover offences motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person’s hair colour.”
An old chestnut, which appeared in my last article on rejected petitions, is school toilets, or restricted access to them. Someone requested Parliament “To make schools allow students to go to the bathrooms during lessons“, asking: “What if someone has some sort of special needs the school doesn’t know of and doesn’t let them go? It will make them super embarrassed about it. Also what if a girl was on her period? She will obviously have to go to the bathrooms to do whatever that is needed.” This was another example of a petition rejected on the grounds that there was already one on the same topic. Maybe so but I searched Hansard in vain for any debates on the topic. In fact, the subject of toilets has barely arisen in Parliament except for one mention by Tory leader hopeful Kemi Badenoch who raised the issue of public toilets in July 2022.
One rejected petition requested “The Police should use water cannons and tear gas at demonstrators and protest (sic)” reckoning that “Water cannons (sic) and tear gas are often used in conjunction with other crowd control methods, such as batons and shields. They can be especially effective at dispersing large crowds or crowds that are resisting arrest”. What astonished me most about this petition, with which I have a modicum of sympathy, was not that it should appear but that it was rejected because: “It’s about something that the U.K. Government or Parliament is not directly responsible for.” If not in the Government’s purview, then whose?
The above are, remarkably, some of the more serious attempts at raising a petition. Clearly from someone who was used to burning the candle at both ends came “Make mondays (sic) start at 10:30 for work and school” because: “If you do this, then it will give people time to adjust and wind down before the first day of the week, making their attitude to working better and increasing their productivity.” The fact that both school and work were mentioned makes me suspect that this came from a teacher who makes the best of the weekends.
As a former duck enthusiast who kept a few as pets I was not sure what to make of the petition — rejected because “It’s not clear what the petition is asking the U.K. Government or Parliament to do” — requesting that we “Don’t class ducks or pigs as live stock (sic)so it’s easier to have them as pet’s (sic)“. And that we should, therefore, “Class ducks as household pets”. As far as I know nothing can stop you from keeping a duck as a pet, although the petitioner may have a point about pigs as, according to GOV.UK: “If you keep a pig or ‘micropig’ as a pet, you’re considered a pig keeper” and that leads to a world of pain and regulations. Trawling through rejected petitions is educational if nothing else.
Finally, my favourite among the most recent rejects was one asking Parliament to “Increase the number of police officers on a motorbike“, which compounded the ambiguity by requesting Parliament to: “Vote for Increasing the number of police officers on a motorbike.” The reasons, according to the petitioner, were that taking this action would “allow quick capture of a thief who usually is on a motorbike too”. The person clearly had not considered the time it would take to get several police officers on to a single motorbike, nor did the person suggest an optimum number. We will never know what Parliament would have made of this request as the petition was rejected because “It was created using a fake or incomplete name”. Shame.
Dr. Roger Watson is Academic Dean of Nursing at Southwest Medical University, China. He has a PhD in biochemistry. He writes in a personal capacity.
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“Let’s hear it for ambition and ruthlessness in politics and for their latest alpha exponent – Robert Jenrick”
What a pity that the Tories were so busy delivering manifesto promises while in office, that they didn’t have time to do this too.
What we have lost
We have gained a great deal more than we have lost
And the losing is, in my view, simply part of the inexorable, inevitable march of human history.
That so many wish to come to this country is a clear demonstration that what we have is still well worth having.
The more things change etc etc
Britain in the fifties, the seventies, was dire. The thirties must have been dire, and the nineteenth century, for the vast majority, does not even bear thinking about.
We are in the doldrums again, it is true. But, thanks to technology, we can see this now with greater clarity.
That does not make things worse.
It makes it a great deal easier to do something about it.
Simply read, for example, the IEA paper ‘Universal Healthcare without the NHS’.
One of the country’s major problems addressed head on; a clear exposition as to how to solve it.
We know what the massive elephant etc is: a bloated and over-mighty public sector.
There is very little wrong with this country that cannot be righted by the simple expedient of downsizing the state.
We know what to do. We have done it before. It works.
Unless we deal with the elephant in the room all other reforms will fail.
Elephants, multiple…
Just completely ludicrous. Presumably this is all a ploy and his wife is in on this. Funny how he only ‘came out’ after his first claim was rejected. Europe is so doomed as long as we have imbeciles like these officials in charge of who is allowed in.
So does this mean the floodgates open for men with families to suddenly claim they’re gay in order to get asylum?
”The case of a father-of-five Muslim who has been granted asylum in Austria, claiming persecution in his home country due to his homosexuality, has stirred significant public debate in the country with political figures expressing outrage over the ruling.
The Russian-Tajik dual citizen entered Austria illegally via Turkey and Saudi Arabia on Sept. 22, 2023, seeking asylum for himself and his family, news outlet Heute reports.
Initially, he cited better job prospects and fear of Russian military service as his reasons for fleeing. His first asylum application was rejected in April 2023. However, during an appeal at the Federal Administrative Court in Vienna, the man introduced a new claim that he faced discrimination, stigmatization, and violence in both Russia and Tajikistan due to his newfound homosexuality.
Despite being a devout Muslim and having recently completed a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, the man stated during the court hearing that he is homosexual and sought refuge in Austria to live openly and meet men without fear.
The court ruled in his favor, noting that his marriage and fatherhood did not contradict his sexual orientation. The man’s previous work in his home country as a butcher, car painter, and construction worker, and his ongoing communication with his wife and children in Turkey via WhatsApp, were also considered in the case.
The asylum decision allows the man to remain in Austria, and he is now eligible to bring his immediate family to join him through the family reunification process.
The individual in this case is not alone in using the protected characteristic of sexual orientation to overturn rejected asylum claims across Europe.
In November last year, a Nigerian man who was granted asylum in Britain after telling authorities he faced persecution by the Boko Haram terrorist organization for being gay went on to father three children and marry a woman in the U.K. He was subsequently found guilty of masterminding a €252,000 Facebook and eBay parcel fraud scam.”
https://rmx.news/article/gay-father-of-five-granted-asylum-in-austria-sparking-heated-political-debate/
The naivety of people who’s only interest is ‘being kind’
He could have sought asylum in Saudi Arabia.
This is a misquote – I heard her describing their actions as “prison-type bad” which is subtly different.
Now everyone can see Iran is the aggressor
But there will still be a few on here that ‘cannot’, in fact will not, for reasons they choose not to divulge.
That also applies to Putin’s barbaric and criminal invasion of Ukraine.
This is why some choose not to acknowledge what is staring them in the face:
‘Russian opposition outlet Astra reported on September 30 that the 2025-2027 (Russian) draft budget allocates 4.5 billion rubles ($47 million) and 49 million rubles ($511,000) in state funding towards the Solovyov Live Telegram channel and Readovka online news aggregator, respectively.
A 2023 joint investigation by Russian opposition outlets Meduza and The Bell found that Readovka posed itself as a semi-opposition outlet prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but then actively started voicing pro-Kremlin views and working with the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) after March 2022.
The joint investigation noted that Readovka founder Alexei Kostylev “always wanted to be in the center,” suggesting that the Kremlin viewed Kostylev’s personal ambitions and affiliations as exploitable factors and co-opted Readovka to further the Kremlin rhetorical line following the full-scale invasion.
Solovyov Live is a Telegram channel run by Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov and has been a major platform through which the Kremlin has sustained its information narratives and dispelled the information space’s criticism since the start of the war.
Solovyov has been using the Solovyov Live Telegram channel to amplify his other online initiatives, such as podcasts, and most recently used the platform to defend the commander of a Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) unit who disbanded a specialized drone unit and sent specialized drone operators to their deaths while conducting an infantry assault.
Both Readovka and Solovyov Live have a decidedly pro-Kremlin bent, and the Kremlin’s sponsorship of these online platforms and initiatives suggests that the Kremlin is increasingly adapting its state-run propaganda machine, which previously focused on traditional TV and print media, to emerging social media platforms.’
Follow the money…..
‘The trolls with Western education may be considered the highest caste of Iranian trolls. American Universities’ alumni are fluent in English and constitute the elite of Iranian Government-backed trolls. They are small in number, but are far beyond their Russian counterparts in terms of quality. Almost 80 percent of these trolls are English-speaking.
They are used for “pinpoint attacks” on particular persons, foreign or Iranian dissidents and activists outside Iran. Comments they post are usually voluminous, distinguished by correct punctuation, competent questions, which attests to proficiency in English and in a subject matter.
Sometimes, an Iranian troll from the highest caste is on the payroll in a prestigious State institution, and acts as an expert in the Western mass media. At the same moment, media outlets, which publish these trolls, do not even know that their “Iranian expert” moonlights as a “pro-government troll” in his country.
There are also trolls among Iranian students studying abroad and secular in appearance Iranians, who have been residing in the West for a long time. The majority of these trolls “work for free”.
That is why they are not the subject of my study.
Creation of fake “persons” is a separate topic. It is widespread in Iran. These fake accounts are, usually, created in social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin. Fake accounts are mainly used for espionage and trolling.
Iranian activists in a conversation with me mentioned a few times that since the beginning of 2017 the Iranian Government’s need for Arabic-speaking trolls has increased dramatically.
I think Iran needs them to use in Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen and Lebanon, as well as in the Syrian issue and mainly against Saudi Arabia, and also to strengthen Iran’s authority among internet-audience of these countries.
The number of Iranian pro-Government trolls is an important issue.
Putting aside voluntary trolls working for free, we may narrow it down. Iranian activists said there may be about 4-5 thousand government-affiliated trolls.
In their opinion, this number can include trolls from various categories, including those who work in State institutions.’
Ali Hajizade, Al Arabiya
Typical condescending government mouthpiece RTE telling you how to keep warm in the winter FFS!
https://www.rte.ie/lifestyle/living/2024/1001/1472978-ways-to-keep-warm-at-home-without-cranking-up-the-central-heating/
With gems like “wear slippers” and “clothing”
Re VAT on university fees.
I cannot see any reason to exempt them if schools are to be subject to VAT. It seems books will have to be VATable too as otherwise the use of VAT free books in a Library would be at odds with paying VAT for tuition by their authors.
On extracurricular activities the DT says these are not exempt. Private schools will need to pay VAT on any additional education. I am not sure why state schools would not have to charge VAT on these additional non-educational services and perhaps they always should have done.
Of interest, I reviewed the accounts of a local school’s PTA a few years ago. I learned the PTA, which is s aseparate legal entity from the school, was buying larger VATable items through the school’s suppliers and the school recovered the VAT before selling the item, VAT-free, to the PTA. My management letter naturally referred to possible breaches of the VAT regulations. Similarly with entertaining costs in excess of HMRC rules as the officers of the PTA could be held to be quasi-workers and subject to the PYE regulations.
I wonder if anyone at HMRC/HMT has thought all this through.
Excellent work.
Welcome to the Daily Zionist Parrotting..
Full of debating “Sceptics”…
Do you want the total dismantling and destruction of the state of Israel?
Typical polarisation of the debate, absolutely typical on here, lacking any nuance..
Answer.. No (obviously)
Do I want to see Israeli illegal settlements, Israeli lobbying in parliament, the MIC controlling government policies, politicians around the world having conflicting interests (ie shares) in the MIC, the corrupt politicians taking back handers from Israeli lobby and the slaughtering of innocent civilians to stop.
Answer.. Yes (obviously)
Noticed how nuanced it is….
Oh forgot one… Do I want people to stop parrotting the Zionist narrative, as if what ever they say is the truth..
… I think you might know the answer to that
You aren’t paying attention.
Joker
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13913385/Kemi-Badenoch-Whitehall-civil-servants-bad-prison.html
Unfortunately this confirms how woefully out of touch Ms Baddenoch is. There are perhaps 10% of civil servants truly worth their money. Sixty percent are taking money under false pretences, twenty percent are wholly unemployable anywhere and the rest belong in prison.